A Christmas Tail: A heart-warming Christmas romance

‘What?’

‘Y’know, dog walking, stick…we’re collecting dog puns.’

‘Not intentionally,’ Cat said. ‘But you’re right, I didn’t last at the nursery.’

Since she’d been living there, it had become an evening ritual. Cat would tell Joe all the things she wished they’d been doing at the nursery, and Joe, a freelance illustrator, would go on about how wonderfully cooperative his clients were to begin with, and how it would take him half a day to lovingly create a drawing of a single person, only to be told by the client that they looked too angry, or too insipid, or too posh. Joe was currently working on websites, marketing and branding for small companies and, at the moment, a local magazine that was probably the cause of the hair pulling.

‘Whose decision?’ Joe asked.

‘What?’

‘Did you jump, or were you pushed?’

The room fell into silence, thoughts drifting up towards the high ceiling as Cat tried to conjure up the best way of explaining what had happened. She didn’t need to.

‘Cat took Disco to the nursery in her handbag, and she escaped during music time. It gave the children more excitement than Miss Knickers-too-tight could handle.’ Polly poured more wine, put her feet back on the table and took them off again at Joe’s instant glare.

‘You took a puppy into a nursery in a handbag?’ He narrowed his eyes.

Cat nodded.

‘And expected chaos not to rain down upon you?’

‘I was hopeful.’

‘You were deluded. No wonder she fired you.’

Cat pressed her lips together and gave a small nod. ‘Maybe. But look where it’s led me.’

‘What, to a bottle of wine and some pie-in-the-sky idea about becoming the local Dr Dolittle?’

‘Hey!’

‘Joe,’ Polly chided, ‘that’s not fair. If Cat sets her mind to it, then I think she can do it.’

‘Well, I’m looking forward to seeing how it turns out.’ He raised his glass, and Polly and Cat did the same, though Cat could see amusement glimmering behind Joe’s serious expression. His rather large ginger cat, Shed, took the opportunity to stalk into the room, shaking out his back feet in turn as if discarding distasteful footwear, and positioning himself on the coffee table. He nudged the bottle of wine close to the edge with his tail.

‘How come Shed’s allowed on the table and not my feet?’ Polly asked. This was not a new argument, and Shed gave her a look that said just that: I’m allowed, you’re not. Get over it.

Joe shrugged. ‘It’s harder to get him to behave than you.’

‘So your battles are based on the effort it takes to achieve the required results? That’s a hopeless way to live your life, Joey.’

‘Yeah, well. I’m older than you are.’

‘But not wiser.’

‘It’s my lease, so I get to make the decisions.’

‘I’m paying the same amount of rent.’

‘Do you always have to be so argumentative?’

‘Only when I’m standing up for my rights.’ Polly crossed her arms.

‘Your rights to have your feet on the table?’

‘I had a shower when I got in, so they’re perfectly clean. Cleaner than Shed’s, I bet. And he’s got his bum on the table.’

Joe looked sideways at his sister. ‘Fair point. Come on, Shed.’

He prodded Shed’s back, and the cat glared at him and stepped onto his knee, kneading his paws into Joe’s jeans.

‘Ahhh – aaaaaaaaaah, not there, Shed!’ Joe tried to move the cat but he refused to budge, and Cat hid her laughter behind her glass. She made the mistake of catching Polly’s eye, and they both shook silently while Joe tried to rescue his private parts. Small portions of near-harmless revenge were very satisfying, even when they came from an unlikely source.

The bottle of wine was empty, Cat’s eyes were blinking sleepily and Joe had long since disappeared to do more work or fume, silently, behind his office door. Polly switched off the television and drummed her fingers on the table.

Cat sat up. ‘What?’

‘He’s not always been like that, you know.’

‘Who, Shed?’ Shed was asleep in Joe’s place on the sofa, a big orange fuzz, his face buried under his tail. Cat imagined he was secretly plotting ways to get her into trouble, playing the perfect pet against her role of irritating new housemate.

‘Joe,’ Polly said. ‘You’ve got the worst of him at the moment, that’s all.’

‘The two-month bad patch?’ Cat raised an eyebrow and grinned at her friend’s exasperation. ‘Sorry, I know things weren’t that great for him before I moved in, but I – I mean, I don’t know the whole story.’ She spoke gently, thinking of all the times she’d tried to get the truth out of Polly, knowing that it wasn’t fair to level her curiosity at her new landlord, but unable to help it.

‘It’s probably time to tell you. He was really stung by Rosalin. No, not stung, that’s not fair. Sometimes it’s easy to think of Joe as a grumbling, emotionless lump, but he’s not like that. He’s broken-hearted.’

‘She left him?’

Polly nodded, hesitated for a second, and then sighed. ‘For his business partner,’ she added. Her tone suggested she still couldn’t believe it, and Cat could understand the incredulity.

‘Alex did the first break-up. They’d been running Magic Mouse Illustrationsfor nearly five years, and he told Joe he’d been headhunted by a company in London, some global corporation with a fat salary and all the extras, and he was going to take it. That was hard, not only because Alex was leaving, but because Joe thought he wouldn’t be able to do it without him. Alex was always better at the graphic design – Joe’s skills are mostly straight illustration, which he’s worried is a dying art. It’s crushed his confidence to think Alex got poached, even though I’m pretty sure Alex wasn’t telling Joe the whole truth.’

‘What do you mean?’ The temperature had dropped, and Cat put a cushion over her feet, too wedged into the sofa to go and get warmer clothes.

‘I think Alex was exaggerating. I think he wanted out – he was about to steal Joe’s girlfriend – so he applied for the job and got it. I’m sure there was no headhunting. Anyway, a few days after that Rosalin told Joe she was leaving him, that she was moving to London with Alex Duhamel, smooth and French and, from that moment on, no longer Joe’s friend. It’s put him off French things for ever – Brie, Paris – and women, and…some other things.’

‘That’s horrible.’ Cat felt instantly guilty, felt the usual sweep of shame at her curiosity.

‘He lost everything in a few days,’ Polly continued. ‘He’s kept Magic Mousegoing, he’s got his head down, but he’s not coping as well as he’d like us to believe. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I don’t like introducing him as “my heartbroken brother”. People shouldn’t be judged on their back story, so I didn’t fill in the blanks.’ Polly sat forward, elbows on her knees. ‘Also, I didn’t want to worry you. It used to be me, Joe and Rosalin here. Joe was fine about you moving in – or he claimed he was – but you’ve still replaced Rosalin in this house, so you might be getting a harder time of it than you should.’

‘He’s not being actively mean to me.’

‘But he’s miserable, sarcastic, pessimistic. I thought it was about time I explained. I don’t want you thinking I’ve mis-sold you the Primrose Terrace experience.’

Cat laughed. ‘You haven’t, and I’m really happy here, I promise. If I wasn’t then I’d be in Brighton trying to get my old job back. But I’m really going to give dog walking a go. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before – it’s perfect for me! And your brother may be down in the dumps, but he sometimes makes an effort to be nice to me, and he’s definitely got his uses.’